Wireless Local Area Networks (LANs) are typically composed of Access Points (APs), wireless controllers, and an access network, through which the traffic between the AP and a wireless controller is tunneled. The AP is usually the first point of contact by wireless devices to the access network. Since the AP is usually a one hop extension to the existing access network, a packet format over the wireless LAN includes the MAC addresses of the wireless device, the AP, and the interface of a first access switch.
The wireless controller usually not only controls the configuration of the AP, but also takes participation in data traffic delivery in many deployed wireless LANs. Although the wired access network did not originally affect the wireless traffic, overall networking demands have affected the wired access network such that the wired access network may be aware of wireless traffic in order not to discriminate the wireless traffic in favor of wired traffic as the volume of wireless traffic has increased exponentially.